My last official act as a Peace Corps volunteer was an exit interview with the director of
Peace Corps in China.

She asked thre questions. ONe, what are you going to do when you get back, two, knowing
what you do now, what advice would you give yourself two years ago as you entered the
Peace Corps, three, what do you take away from all of this.

The first question was pretty easy for me to answer, for I will be returning to teach
at Weber State University.

I did not really have much of an answer for the second question. It seems everything that
 was really essential I knew going in--that the time would go fast, that I should cherish
 each moment, that there would be good days and bad days but the good would definitely
outweigh the bad. In retrspect, though I can think of a few things I would have added.
FIrst, I would advise myself coming the China two years ago not to waste any energy trying
to get the student's attention in the classroom. Don't expect them to stop talking
completely, or to not use their cell phones. YOu should aim for some sort of level of
 reduction on this front, like in an arms control treaty. And definitely do not try to get
the students to keep quiet when other students are talking. I think I wasted a lot of energy
 in attempts at classroom control that now strike me as somewhere between absurd and futile.
 The other thing I would tell myself is to try to keep a journal. I made a half hearted
effort at one for a while and was looking over it the other day, and there was some interest
ing insights and memories contained within, and I wish I had done a better job at the
process. But at least I kept enough notes to work on the book about my experiences here.
A third thing I would tell myself, contrary to Peace Corps guidance, is not to focus more
on the written language than the spoken language. I have certainly enjoyed the time and
effort I have devoted to studying the written Chinese language (known as 'Hanzi').
Focusing on it would have led to a more overall knowledge of the language since I enjoyed
studying it, and I think ultimately would have improved my oral skills. I think a minimum
level oral proficiency is required, but in truth you can exist on very little and you are
not going to get proficient in two years, especially because you live in a region where
 most people speak the dialect. So the written language was where my interest lay and I
should have devoted more time to that.

As for what I have taken away, well, it is hard to summarize. The Socrates Cafe has been
the source of beginning to learn about the culture here. I think I had come with the
assumption that all humans are the same and there are no significant differences. And
while I would say that is true at one level, I would now say there are significatn
differences. I don't have time here to illuminate them (this is the focus of the book I am
writing), but a recent book "The Geography of Thought," by Richard Nisbett offers some
interesting evidence for some claims about intellectual differences in Eastern and Western
 cultures that have been borne out by a lot of my personal experiences and in the Socrates
Cafe. The claim of some significant differences was also at the heart of one of my favorite
 books about China, My COuntry and MY People, by LIn Yutang, who was one of the major
cultural interpreters of China in the 30s, 40s and 50s in America. I think his writing
today would be branded not 'politically correct', but it bears out some of the ideas of
 Nisbett as well as some of his own interesting observations and is certainly worth reading.